Thief
by TheSeer
Summary: Before the Keyblade War, before everything, they were children in the Eternal City.  Chapter 7, in which Ven does not kiss the Empress.
1. A Pear Tree

The boy had spiky blond hair, cheap clothes, and no shoes. He was also hanging from his knees from a branch in Aqua's garden. He had been sitting on it a moment ago, probably, but he'd just swung down in front of Aqua's face, grinning like a demon.

She didn't scream, though. If she'd screamed, a lot of things would have been different.

"Hello," she said.

"Hi, princess!"

"Why are you in my tree?"

"Because I'm a theeEE!" Thud. Now the boy had soil in his hair. He popped to his feet as though nothing had happened. "Eheh. Because I'm a thief."

Princess Aqua had never met a thief, but she was fairly sure they weren't scruffy, clumsy, and ten. "Oh? What were you stealing up there? There's no fruit yet, and we haven't any golden bird's nests or diamond squirrels."

"I was stealing the tree!"

Aqua looked at the thirty foot pear tree, and then at the scrawny kid. "You're not a very good thief, are you?"

"No, look. I bet _you_ haven't climbed this tree to the top yet, right?"

"Of course not."

"Well, there ya go! No matter what, I'll always be the guy who climbed _your_ tree before you did."

"Princesses," Aqua informed the urchin haughtily, "do not climb trees."

"Then what's the point of having 'em?"

This was so silly that Aqua couldn't think of an answer. "What's your name, thief?"

"I'm Ven," he said, pronouncing it like it was a senator's name. "Good to meet you, Princess Aqua." The bow was completely wrong. Ven looked like a very dirty wading bird, and he nearly fell down again.

"Your Highness?"

"Oh!" Aqua spun around. It was that young officer who'd just joined the guard. He was nice enough, but come to think of it, even a boy who probably wasn't a real thief would not be allowed in the imperial gardens.

He came under the shade of the tree, clanking in his polished armor, gladius slung at his side. "Your Highness? Were you speaking to someone?"

Aqua looked behind her. The garden was quite empty of thieves. "Not really, Triari Terra. I suppose I was talking to the birds." She giggled - she had practiced that giggle, it stopped all sorts of boring questions from old noblemen at parties.

"Oh, of course, Highness," the soldier said. He looked, annoyingly, like he was hiding a smile. He had no right to smirk at a princess. Anyway, he wasn't all that many years older than her. "Sorry to disturb you." He tapped his gauntlet to his breastplate in salute, and went back to his post.

Aqua smiled disarmingly at him until he was gone, then spun around to look for Ven. Really, she did not need so many guards about all the time, but when she brought it up Father would only say "It is a dark world, little raindrop," and the next day the guards were there all the same.

Ven, on the other hand, had vanished completely. She looked up, but he was not in his stolen tree, either, though where else he might have gone she didn't know. She could almost believe he _was_ a thief.

No, wait. A bare foot had left a clear print in the soil below the tree. Aqua frowned at it for a moment, then leaned over and brushed it away. She looked up, trying to see where the boy had gone, but all she saw was the trees, the wall of the garden, and the distant lines of the skyscrapers against the grey sky.


	2. A Bag of Wishes

Aqua's tutors had told her that there was a celestial body brighter than the moon. It lit the world all day, apparently, which Aqua supposed must make it very bright indeed. But she could not imagine it. The scuddy slate of the daylit sky just didn't compare to the rare nights when the sky opened up and the world was laced with brilliant electrum moonlight.

She heard a rustling behind her, and a clank of armor. "Hello, Triari," she said without turning around.

"Highness," Terra's deep voice answered. "You're missing your party."

"Yes," she agreed, turning around. Terra was standing some five yards away. Ven was a bit closer, as still as though he was frozen, beneath a bush that would hide him from Terra. As long as he did not breathe, anyway, and the guard did not take two steps forward.

Aqua trusted her face did not say any more to soldiers than it did to nobles and their wives. "It only seems very false, Triari Terra," she said, stepping forward. A guard could not come too near a princess; her maiden's aura would be like a wall between Terra and Ven. "The main order of business at my birthday party is for my father to manipulate votes in the Senate."

"Many things are false, Your Highness," Terra said. "It is a dark world. But the one person you know is glad for your birthday is your Imperial father. And you can't help him with his work by standing in the moonlight." To Aqua's surprise, he added, "However pretty it looks on you."

Guards were some of the most boring things in Aqua's life. Quite like furniture. They stood about all day, they were regularly polished, they were chosen by her father. They certainly did not say things like _that._ Weren't any of Terra's men listening? Or were they too loyal to report on him?

Ven, Aqua saw in the corner of her eye, was glaring at the guard. He had to be wishing Terra would just go away, or at least find him and end the torture.

"You're right, Triari," she said, ignoring the bit about how pretty she was. "I have my duties." She stepped forward, angling so that when Terra stepped aside it would put more bush, not less, between him and the hiding urchin. He followed her back into the palace.

It was past midnight when she returned, claiming a desire to walk outside before bed, but really to wipe out Ven's footprints. But the moon had gone out, and she couldn't find any in the lights of the palace and the city. Instead, at the base of the pear tree, she stubbed her toe on something that rattled.

Luckily, it wasn't very loud. Bending over, she found that it was a sack, filled with what had to be the emptied out contents of Ven's attic. Or dustbin, maybe. The first thing she had to run her hands over to identify. A teapot? It had a very strange shape, if that's what it was, and teapots were porcelain, not bronze. The next was a ring, made of brass and too large even for Aqua's thumb. Then a bird's bone with a shape like a Y. In the bottom were a bunch of little metal discs.

"Money?" she whispered indignantly. Princesses did not carry money. And she was fairly sure these little copper ones were barely worth anything.

"They're the ones the grown-ups threw in the Victory Square fountain," Ven's voice whispered from above her.

This time she gasped. Just a little - she wasn't _scared_, of course. Princesses did not become frightened. "You stayed all this time? You could have gotten caught."

"I was gonna leave, but I wanted to see you open it." _She_ couldn't see _him_, though, which surely wasn't fair.

Was this bag of rubbish an attempt at a birthday present? Well, he wasn't a thief, but Ven was obviously poor. She should try to be polite. "Why only the adults' coins?"

"Because grown-ups don't believe in wishes. If a kid's penny got a wish it would be used up." Slowly Aqua looked down at the sack. Wishes. They were all wishes. "Well, the ring and the lamp didn't work. Wanna try the wishbone?" A grubby hand reached down out of the shadows.

Aqua knew how this was done; she had seen a pair of scullery maids try it once. She held the bone by one branch and held it up to Ven. He grabbed the other, and pulled. The larger piece came off in his hand.

"That's okay!" he whispered. "I wished for you to have a wish."

Aqua raised an eyebrow. "I thought that a wish told would not come true."

"Oh. Right." He sounded so crestfallen. Ashamed, Aqua reached into the bag. All that was left in there was two squares of paper.

"What is this?"

"Oh, that one's stupid. I couldn't finish."

"But I don't understand. What does paper do?"

"You gotta fold it. Here." He dropped down in front of her. "Gimme one, and do what I do." With his tongue between his teeth, and frequent pauses to remember, Ven led her through a series of folds.

"Oh!" Aqua said when they finished. "It's a crane. How delightful!" It was a rather sad and ragged crane, though. At least the one Ven made was only a bit better.

"Heh. Well, that's a thousandth of a wish." He handed her the other one. "And that's two thousandths. The other ones were better."

"No, for I can keep these. If a servant found any of those other things in my room there would be questions, or they would be thrown away."

"Oh," Ven said. "That's probably why they didn't work." He gathered up everything into the sack again. "Okay. In that case I'll come back with more paper. Maybe by your next birthday we can finish."

"How often do you propose to sneak into my garden, then?" Aqua said. "I will get no wish if you are caught."

"I've never been caught," Ven bragged. He took up his sack and jumped up into the tree with only the slightest rattle. But he left one footprint in the soil, which Aqua again brushed away.


	3. A Captain's Honor

"Why do you give these to me? Don't you have a wish?"

Ven had been about to vanish back into the twilight, but he stopped and grinned. "Aw, guys like me don't get wishes, Princess. Not really. It's a story thing." And so a princess was enough of a storybook character to be eligible? "Plus my roof leaks. How many does that make?"

"Two hundred and forty-seven are made already." They had overflowed her bedchamber, and the more comely cranes now flocked in the solarium, hanging from the ceiling by strings. Aqua tried to estimate the thickness of the stack of paper in her hands. "With this, perhaps three hundred? Two hundred and eighty?" Her father would have given her paper, of course. In fact, he thought he was. But that seemed. . . easy, to Aqua. As Ven might say, it would never happen that way in a story. And it would not be his present.

"Here. I'll make it one more." He took a sheet of paper and started folding.

Aqua took another, and followed him. She didn't need his example any more - she made a neater crane than he did now - but she enjoyed the help. "You didn't answer my other question. Don't you have your own wish?"

"Doesn't everyone?" He made a fold, then another, until Aqua was about to either ask him again or give up. "I guess I'd wish to get out of here." After a moment, he looked up and added, "'Course, I'd take you with me."

"Get out of where?" He couldn't mean the garden, he could get out of that perfectly well on his own.

"This stinking city." Aqua blinked. The towers of the city had always looked rather pretty to her, especially at night with the lines of lit windows all up their sides. "Maybe you don't see it, Princess, in here with your guards and your money and your pretty garden. But your city's like a pit full of rats."

"But what would you steal, out there in the country?" Aqua teased, for Ven still insisted he was a thief.

"I'd find somethin'," he said. "But they'd find you out in the sticks, no sweat."

Bringing her along had been a polite afterthought, surely, but she played along. "So where would there be for us to go, that is outside the city's power?"

"They say the stars are other worlds."

Aqua looked dubiously up at the sky. "They say many things about the stars, rare sights as they are. But my tutors never mentioned such a thing."

"Well, they wouldn't, would they? Other worlds wouldn't take orders from the Emperor." He leaned back against the trunk of his stolen tree, smiling, as if worlds outside the Empire made a very happy thought. "There'd be someplace people could sleep safe at night, no gangs or Justicar's men. And beautiful - there would be this. . . this light, everywhere, it would be brighter than daylight, and so warm. . ."

Aqua had assumed the source of daylight was a secret of scholars, a thing so strange and far away that only the learned would know about it, or care. But here it was, shining in the dreams of poor children. Or maybe it was just Ven? "It would blind you," Aqua whispered. So she had been taught. "It would burn you. Your heart could not stand the heat."

Ven grinned. "I'm not afraid of the light."

"Step back quickly, your Highness," they heard, and then the rapid clank of steel.

Aqua was too startled to move at all. It was Ven who was quick, jumping from his seat at the base of the tree like a toy on a spring, to grab a branch eight feet above the ground. As fast as Triari Terra moved - Aqua hadn't thought anyone could sprint in full plate armor - Ven would be out of reach in time.

Then he slipped. Just a small slip - instead of leaping up from the branch, one of his feet slipped to hang a few inches below it. Terra grabbed his ankle and yanked. Ven sprawled on the ground, but even as Terra reached for him he was up, he spun. His left hand flailed, and hit Terra's chest, making for some reason a sound like scraping metal. Terra grabbed him, by the throat of his shirt and his left wrist, slammed him against the tree trunk, and twisted the knife out of his hand. Aqua stared at the crude dagger, lying in the dirt.

"Step back, your Highness. I have him." Ven spat on his visor. Terra banged him against the tree trunk again.

"Let him go at _once_, Triari," Aqua hissed. Ven had made almost no noise, and even Terra had not called the alarm. If the other guards came this would become impossible.

"No, your Highness. I am sworn to protect you from danger."

"From him? He is my friend, Triari. I am in more danger from the squirrels in this garden than from him." Ven actually looked offended at that.

"He is likely a thief, Highness." (Ven raised his chin and gave her a look. She could almost hear him say _See?_) "And he tried to kill a palace guard officer. That's worth the Emperor's necktie by itself."

"The what?" Aqua asked. Ven mimed being hanged, by way of answer.

Terra banged him against the tree again. "Quiet, brat," he snarled, though Ven had not spoken since he appeared. The shock knocked Ven's other hand open. A crumpled bit of paper fell to the ground. The crane shape was still recognizable.   
Terra had seen Aqua's solarium. He looked from Ven's crane to the one Aqua still held. His face became very strange. "And planning to violate a princess of the Empire is treason. For that he will be taken up Cruce Tower, and hung by the wrists." Aqua blinked. This sounded oddly mild, for treason.

"That's disgusting!" Ven spat, breaking his silence. "I'd never!"

"It is also ridiculous. He can't be twelve years old."

"I'm thirteen!"

Did he _want_ to be hung? "Clearly he has some disrespect for the truth," Aqua said. Thirteen would make him only a few months younger than she was. She didn't know many boys, but she knew they were not supposed to be shorter and skinnier than girls of the same age. "But he has never laid a finger on me, nor offered me the slightest insult."

"His intentions are clear. . ."

"Do you think I cannot recognize such?" Terra fell silent. "You have made certain comments, Triari, that I have fortunately failed to understand. But my father is an expert in rhetoric, perhaps he could explain them to me." Terra was a soldier, and no coward - he did not pale or blanch. But he still did not answer. "And speaking of explanations, how does one die from being hung by the wrists?"

"Thirsty," Ven said, grinning, feeling the balance tip the other way. "That's how. Takes about three days. Think they'd string us up side by side? 'Course, I'm a kid, they'd probably tie me loose, let me drop."

"There, Triari. You will see him escape one way or another."

"Well, sort of," Ven said. "Cruce's about sixty stories tall." Aqua flinched. The mercies of executioners were apparently small.

"My men," Terra finally said. "Several of them must have seen or heard something by now."

"They report to you, do they not?" Aqua pointed out. "They have been notably silent before."

Finally Terra gave Ven one more rough shake, and let him loose. "In the end, I swore to die to save her Highness, and death atop Cruce is still just death. I will be watching for you, brat. The next time I see you within these walls, I will kill you myself." Ven scoffed, brushed himself off, and scrambled up the tree. He did not say goodbye, but then, he often didn't.

Aqua bent down and picked up the crumpled, abandoned crane. "That one won't be decorating the solarium, I suppose," Terra said.

"It is the most precious of birds," Aqua snapped, and strode away.


	4. An Oath to Protect

Being caught seemed to make Ven shy, even though he was let go again. No more paper appeared, and certainly Aqua did not see him. After a long time, reluctantly, she began folding paper cranes again, with her father's paper. It was a betrayal, but not as much as stopping would be.

As it happened, she didn't see much of Terra, either. Like her father, he seemed to be busy with something most of the time. She couldn't imagine what. He was a guard. Wasn't his job was to stand still, and look at things?

If she was in the garden long enough, though, he would usually come. Aqua assumed he was making sure she did not meet Ven there. "Cranes again," he said one day, as she laid one beside her on a bench, to rattle in the slight breeze.

"A clerk was nice enough to give me the paper," Aqua said stiffly.

"I know," Terra said. "He told me." And if no clerk told him, but Aqua made more cranes anyway, Terra would know that, too.

"At least while this ridiculous caution continues, I know Ven has not been hung by the wrists," Aqua said, giving him her coldest look. "I really must thank you for that, Triari."

"Centurion," Terra corrected. "The recent unrest makes opportunities."

"Why, congratulations," she said, with bitterly perfect manners. She began another crane and hoped Terra would go away.

"Is that what you wish for?" Terra asked. "That the little thief not be hung?"

"That is certainly none of your business." Not to mention, a wish told would not come true, and in any case she did not know what she wished. "How do you know I wish for anything?"

Terra nodded at the paper she was folding. "The Chasers travel widely. One of them told me the story." Was there a story about the paper cranes? Ven hadn't mentioned it. Perhaps he didn't know it. Aqua did not ask Terra.

"You should become a Chaser, then," Aqua simpered. "Travel to distant places sounds marvelous." The further away from her, the better.

He looked away. "My request was denied. His Imperial Majesty is. . . nervous. He wishes to keep a man he trusts in command of the palace guard."

"How ironic."

He glared at her. "I swore to protect you, your Highness. You may not like how I do my duty, but you must believe my oath is good." His tone was odd. She raised an eyebrow at him. "And I would protect you even without my oath," he added.

"So would Ven."

"He lied to you, Highness. Everyone in that rancid rat-pit lies as soon as they speak."

Calling someone of Terra's class a liar was grounds for a duel, but of course Ven was poor enough to be insulted freely. And how could something Ven had never said be a lie? Aqua lost her temper. "I trust you with my life every day, _Centurion_ Terra. But your reciprocal trust in my judgment seems lacking. Or do you think you have a hope if you threaten every other boy I meet with execution?"

Terra's chin came up. "Boys throw themselves at false hopes, your Highness. A man knows what is possible and what is not." Aqua thought of Ven, and his wishes, and the light, and did not know what to say. "I'm expected in a meeting," Terra said. "Good day, Highness."


	5. A Night of Ashes

"Aqua. Aqua!"

"Father?" He was the only one who called her Aqua. She sat up in bed, rubbing at her eyes.

"No." It was Terra. Something soft came through the bed curtains. "Wear this. Hurry."

"Centurion Terra, _how_ did you just address me?" She did put the thing on over her nightgown, even though it was a bathing robe. She had to wear something.  
"Apologies. I needed you to wake quickly. Men and women forget titles in their sleep, but not their names." His voice was clipped.

"And _what_, Centurion, are you doing in my bedchamber?" She opened the bed curtains, and stopped. Not just Terra, but five of his men were there, all in armor, with hands on their swords. "What is the meaning of this?" Aqua demanded, but her voice was not as loud as it had been.

"The palace is aflame. Come with us." And he marched toward the door without looking back.

Aqua coughed. There was something rough-tasting in the air. She followed, and the other guards fell in behind. "Where are you taking me?"

"The garden."

Well, that made sense, it was behind walls and yet outside the building itself. "Where are my maids?"

"I found none. Fled, or joined the bucket line, or hiding. It doesn't matter."

"It certainly does," Aqua said, looking at the six large men around her, but she did not say it loudly. The man could not conjure maids out of the ground, and it was, after all, an emergency.

The garden was close by Aqua's suite, it did not take long to get there. "Send a man to my father," Aqua said, "and tell him I am safe. He will be worried."

"I cannot."

"I'm sure five men can guard me from smoke as well as six, Centurion."

"I _cannot_. Your Majesty."

Aqua did not freeze, she only slowed. The world lurched oddly. "Centurion Terra. How did you just address me?"

Terra held out his hand, and in a flash of light he was holding a keyblade, great and golden, with six tines. The Empire Key. Aqua stared at its pommel, where no chain or medallion hung, proof that its master was dead. "Your father is dead, my Empress." He knelt to her, as did all his men, and he held out the keyblade hilt first.

"How?"

"By magic, your Majesty." His eyes dropped. "And also by suicide. He called down fire upon himself."

Tears ran down Aqua's face. But she was a princess, and her voice did not shake. "Put that weapon away. I cannot use it."

"As you wish, your Majesty." Terra vanished the keyblade and stood up. His men looked at each other, and Aqua realized that by giving him a keyblade to keep, she'd made him a Chaser. That was what a Chaser was, someone who kept one of the thirteen – no, fourteen, now – keyblades of the past Emperors. Chaser of Heartless, it meant, who could go after the creatures while the Emperor stayed in the city and governed. All the better, then. She hadn't liked Terra before; now his face would remind her. . .

Aqua turned away. Her voice was steady and clear; if none of the guards could see her eyes it would be as though she wasn't crying. "Why would my father do this? Are you sure it was he?"

"I saw him cast the spell myself, Majesty. I was there, but not quite in time. I could not stop him."

"But _why_?"

"There has been treason, your Majesty," Terra said, his voice bitter. "The eastern warding-gates have been unlocked, and the streets are filled with Heartless. Chaser Reks is missing."

"We were betrayed by a _Chaser?_"

"Or he was killed, and his keyblade taken." Neither sounded likely. Chasers were chosen for their dedication and loyalty, and they carried the most powerful weapons in the world. "There are only four other Chasers in the city, and Rasler is pinned down on the north wall, cut off from the palace. Chaser Prime Basch says he can't secure the palace, much less the city, until the other eight keys return. Tomorrow."

Aqua's chin came up, though she was still looking away. "You may inform Chaser Prime that this is unacceptable. We must hold the Imperial Palace."

"Damn it, Aqua, if he says it can't be done, it can't be done!" _Now_ Aqua looked, glaring wrathfully – and tearfully – into his eyes. "Your Majesty," Terra amended. "Forgive my impertinence. But I implore you to accept the truth. The palace will fall. I've ordered my men to gather your critical ministers and officers and rally here." The phrasing shook Aqua – _her_ ministers and officers. She was the Empress. She didn't let the shock touch her face. "Basch will hold as long as he can, and he'll probably stretch it to give Rasler time to get back to us, but he expects to fall back to us and guard our retreat out of the city within the hour."

"What about my people?" Ven was out there somewhere.

"Some of them will be able to escape the Heartless until we return. It will only be twelve hours. If we lose you, the Empire falls, and none of them escape."

He was right. The Imperial family weren't just political leaders, they were the centers of the Empire's power – mighty mages and wielders of the chained keyblades called the Empire Keys. The first eight or nine nobles in the succession lived in the city. But Aqua just kept looking at the city, and the tree Ven always came down. . .

"Princess! Something went wrong, the streets are knee-deep in Neoshadows and they'll be over the walls in a minute and did you know your house is on fire?"

There he was, sitting on the branch just as he always had – well, he looked frightened and tense, but aside from that the same. Terra and his guards just stared for a second, long enough for Aqua to answer first.

"I'd noticed, yes. What are you doing here?"

"I came to protect you!" Aqua gave a pointed glance to the armored soldiers around her. Ven just rolled his eyes. "Yeah, and how're the guys in the pretty sixty pound armor gonna get you over the wall? 'Cause the gate's got so many Heartless in front of it they'll just pile up and pour over the top as soon as the Chasers stop fighting. Maybe they can get away – whatsisname with Honorbound is pretty good – but I don't think they can get you out before the walls go."

"The palace guard is coming with important government officials," Aqua began.

"No way," Ven said. "Dozens of hearts and no keyblades? They'd swarm you under. And you still can't get over the wall." Ven pulled at his hair. "I don't even know if any of my friends are okay. What the hell were those shiny sword-monkeys doing, anyway? You call this place the thousand year empire, you say this city will last forever, you hang kids off Cruce in the name of His Majesty's peace, and then you let the friggin' Heartless in? What are you people even _for?_"

Aqua flinched. The power of the Empire came in return for exactly the obligation Ven accused them of failing. But Terra laughed, bitterly. "The thousand year empire is just a line we give the street rabble. The world never was like that. We've been hanging on by our fingernails for three hundred years." He looked at Ven. "I think you're right, rat-boy. In fact, since none of my men are showing up, I think the Heartless are already inside the compound somewhere." Magic flickered in the distance, underlighting the clouds in red and white flashes. "Are you loyal to the princess, rat-boy?"

"Always," Ven said instantly. And then, "What, you still think I come here to get in her pants?" He said it as though it were the most revolting idea possible, and also as if Aqua had ever in her life worn pants. She gave him a royal look, which he ignored. "In the middle of a Heartless swarm?"

Terra ignored his sarcasm. "And you can get back over the wall?"

"I can get _myself_ back over. And probably I can help the princess over. But there ain't no steel-covered sword monkey gonna climb it."

Terra smiled like a wolf, then pulled his spiked helmet on. "I can go anywhere you can, rat-boy, armor or no." He turned to his men. "You can try to keep up, or take off your armor and follow, or try to make your own ways," he said frankly. "Her Majesty can't wait for you. It's rough luck on you any way, and I won't give any orders, but you'll stay alive longer if you're all together."

The five guards looked at each other, and started pulling each other's armor off. Aqua probably should have realized it before, but peeling sixty pounds of steel off yourself was not a speedy process. "We'll be right behind you, Centurion, Majesty," one of them said. And perhaps they would, if the Heartless were not as fast as Ven and Terra feared.

Ven held down a hand toward Aqua. "Come on, Princess. We've gotta go." She took it, and he pulled her up into the tree.

Ven's route in and out of the castle relied on a branch of the pear tree that brushed against the wall near the top. Ven and Aqua barely had to jump; Terra took a ridiculous flying leap almost from the trunk, where the branch was thick enough for him and his armor, and caught the edge. He pulled himself up without help.

They went along the wall a short ways to a tower. ("This door should be locked," Terra muttered in passing, and Ven smirked.) There was a rope coiled outside a narrow window, tied to a spike pounded into the wooden floor, apparently both new for Aqua's sake. Ven could apparently wriggle through, and Aqua thought she might as well, but Terra in armor had no hope. He gave it a look, and the Empire Key appeared in his hand. He simply hacked the wall apart until the opening was large enough. "There are Heartless at the bottom," he said. "I must go first." He threw the keyblade down like the hammer of a god, and was climbing down after it before he'd finished talking. Maybe the rope wouldn't have held him long, but then again, he slowed himself on rope and wall only enough to not break a leg at the bottom, and landed in the middle of the Heartless with a crash of armor and an arc of swinging gold.

Ven was next. He'd looked very strange, seeing Terra holding proof that the Emperor was dead, but he didn't say anything about it. Instead, as he started down the rope, he flashed Aqua a sad grin. "Make a wish, princess," he said. Aqua realized that there was a break in the clouds over his shoulder, and through it shone a single star, the first she'd seen in weeks. Behind her, war magic flashed, then stopped, and screams began rising from the palace. Somewhere inside were nine hundred and twenty-six paper cranes, burning.


	6. A Strange Old Man

Ven took them south, through alleys and winding little streets that took them further away from the Heartless swarm to the north and east. "But the southern warding gate is still locked," Aqua said. "We cannot get out this way."

"Don't worry, Princess. I'm taking you to Gramps. He'll know what to do."

Aqua had never imagined that Ven might have family. He seemed the very picture of a gutter orphan. But she doubted his grandfather would know what to do in this disaster, when Aqua's own father clearly hadn't. . . Aqua wiped her eyes clean. There would be time later for that.

Though there were no enormous mobs of Heartless in that part of the city, Terra still never bothered to vanish the Empire Key. He had to destroy a handful of Heartless every block or so. He was an amazing swordsman, Aqua noticed grudgingly. Without her father, without his men, he still had the strength and the temerity to save her life, as easily and silently as a man slicing bread.

But even Terra couldn't be in two places at once. It was Ven who spotted the Heartless coming up behind them, while Terra was busy in the front. "Princess!" Ven shouted. He started running to put himself between her and them, but there was no weapon where his left hand was reaching. He'd lost his dagger to Terra months ago. Terra's head snapped around when he heard Ven shout, but he wouldn't get there in time. So Aqua held out her hands, palms first.

"Thunder." And there was thunder, shockingly loud, as a stroke of lightning blasted the lead Heartless into nothing. Aqua hesitated for a moment, then focused again. "Thunder." Another lightning bolt, another destroyed Heartless. "Thunder!" Several bolts came at once, now, with a noise so profound it struck Aqua like a club to the forehead. But when she opened her eyes, all the Heartless in sight were gone, even Terra's.

Ven blinked, and grinned. "Way to go, Princess!" Terra just looked at her, surprise somehow showing on the blank visor of his helmet.

"A princess of the Empire," Aqua said, trying not to shout over the ringing in her ears, "does more than sit in the garden all day." In fact, she'd never tried war magic before. It was shockingly easy, turning her power to destruction. It really was a dark world.

"Good," Terra said. "It will make keeping you alive much easier. Which way, rat?"

"Left, ape," Ven answered. "And keeping her alive will be easier if you keep your damn eyes open next time. Come on, we're almost there." He led them up the street, to a narrow, immaculately clean house that looked like it was built four or five emperors ago. "Unlock the door."

Terra turned to Aqua. "What is your command, your Majesty?" he asked formally.

"There is no time for this, _Chaser_. Do as he. . ."

The door opened on its own. Standing inside was an old man, who reminded Aqua at once of a senator. His back was bent, and there was something grandfatherly about his face and his neat beard, but his eyes were brilliant with age and power. Aqua was instantly, automatically wary.

Ven, though, brightened at once. "Gramps!"

"Ventus. Give me your hand." He took Ven's wrist, pressing two fingers below the base of his thumb. Ven did the same to him. "Good," the old man said. "Come inside, quickly." Aqua went to follow Ven in, but the old man stepped in her way. "Your hand, please."

"If you harm her. . ." Terra began.

"It is a simple test," the old man said. "Powerful Heartless and Nobodies can appear much like their original selves, but Heartless have no solid flesh, and Nobodies have no heartbeat."

What in the world was a Nobody? But this wasn't the time for questions; Aqua just held out her hand. The old man touched her wrist for the merest moment. "My apologies," he said, and let her pass. "Now you, soldier. And show me your eyes." Terra glared for a moment, then vanished his keyblade and pulled off his helmet and one gauntlet. The old man quickly passed him through.

"I was beginning to fear you'd lost your heart, Ventus," the old man said.

Ven scuffed his foot on the carpet. "I know it was dangerous, Gramps, but I couldn't just leave her in there!"

"No, you did exactly right." He looked at Aqua. "The Princess Aqua, I presume."

"The Empress," Aqua corrected quietly.

The man glanced at Terra. The chainless Empire Key was vanished now, but he'd seen it. "Of course," he said. He gave her a perfect court bow. "My deepest condolences, your Majesty. And so you, I imagine," he turned to Terra, "are called. . . Chaser Terra?"

"Yes."

"You are Ven's grandfather?" Aqua asked.

"We are not kin, despite his rude form of address." Ven only grinned at the criticism. "I am something like a mentor to him. A fellow traveler, from another turn of the wheel. My name is Urth. Please, sit down. There is much to discuss, and we have some time. Heartless will not enter a closed house until they swarm much thicker than they do now."

Aqua supposed the furniture was attractive, by common standards, but it was deceptively uncomfortable. She almost envied Terra, who couldn't sit in his armor anyway. "Something went wrong, Gramps," Ven said. "Brotherhood's Chaser went down almost right away, and I think Ragnarok's lost now, too. The palace is totally trashed."

"The city is lost," Urth said. "Perhaps all thirteen remaining Chasers together could defeat the Heartless host, but by the time they gather there will be no humans left to save from them."

"Twelve," Terra said. Urth looked at him. "There are twelve Chasers remaining. Three at the palace, eight outside the city, and me."

"Ah, yes," Urth said after a moment. "One always forgets to subtract the Traitor's Key."

"This cannot be allowed," Aqua said. "If we found Chaser Prime, perhaps we could. . ."

"You could not," Urth said. "I have seen this too many times. It happens in every turn of the wheel; it cannot be prevented. Fate remembers the breaking of the World That Was. The only hope is to win our way to Kingdom Hearts. With that power, all that has been lost can be restored."

"Kingdom Hearts. . ." Ven breathed. His eyes were bright, as though he recognized the phrase from a story Aqua didn't know.

"I don't understand," Aqua said.

"This world is doomed, your Majesty," Urth said. "If you are to have any hope of saving it, you must fly from it."

"It's real," Ven whispered. "It's all true."

"It is all, true, Ventus," Urth agreed. "Hidden nearby is my ship, carved from the heart of a fallen star. It can take us to other worlds. I would have told you before, but I could not be sure until I saw the three of you together."

"Who are you, old man?" Terra asked harshly. "How do you know so much?"

Urth's eyes became shadowed. "I have been traveling the worlds for a long time. I have seen all this before. Destiny cannot continue in its course while the World That Was remains broken. It repeats the same story, over and over, different each time but always the same story. I have seen it happen a hundred times, the story of the Hero and the Princess and the Fool of Fate, the story of the keyblades and Kingdom Hearts."

Terra snorted. "Fairy tales. Why should we believe. . ."

"Look into my eyes!" Urth snapped. "They cannot lie to you, for they are your same eyes. I tell you again, I have seen this happen before. I have seen it happen to me." His voice became low, and sad, and angry. "We were like you, Skye and Loch and I, and now they are long dead, and I remain. I would see this cycle ended, or burn my soul away in trying."

Aqua could hear the truth in his voice. She could also hear the rage, and it terrified her. She swallowed, and said, "In any event, if this place is safe from the Heartless for a time, then I must sleep, and perform the Dive to the Heart. I am the Empress, and there must be a new Empire Key."

Ven looked at the floor. When Aqua had completed the Dive, he would be the only one of the three of them without a keyblade. "Yes," Urth said after a moment. "Another keyblade would be invaluable. There are beds upstairs; you have an hour. I will prepare the ship."

She left, and Terra followed her, obviously meaning to guard her as she slept. For once, she didn't mind. "I mistrust that man," she whispered.

"So do I."

Aqua gave him a sidelong look. "Yes, but you mistrust him only because he's Ven's friend."

"He slipped," Terra whispered, "and included the Traitor's Key in his count. A suspicious thing, just as we find out that the rat's full name is Ventus."

"That is incredible," Aqua said. "You are grasping at straws. There must be five thousand men named Ventus in the city; I know two others myself. And Ven is thirty years too young. He cannot have even been born when Chaser Ventus vanished." Terra opened his mouth to argue, and Aqua spoke right over him. "You're being ridiculous. Ven saved our lives tonight. Concentrate on keeping me safe, and leave him alone."

Terra bowed his head. "Majesty." Aqua lifted her chin, and went into the bedroom to sleep. As she closed the door, she heard Terra's armor clank as he took his silent post.


	7. A Gentle Awakening

The Emperor walked into his chambers, moving stiffly with shock and despair. It was over. The walls were broken, Heartless were in the eternal city, and Chaser Prime was talking about the Emperor taking the field. Basch was never desperate, but the hard tactical calculations behind the keyblade-captain's eyes were surely desperate indeed. Some Emperors had been real fighters in the past, but this one wasn't.

All was lost. The center would not hold. It would end here, and it couldn't end here, not yet. Not _now_, the emperor begged in his mind, speaking to any god he ever might have believed in. The city would fall, but the heroes, the Chasers, would ensure that he lived. He would run, and live, and watch as it all fell down. . .

"Fire," the Emperor whispered, and there was fire. He had never been afraid of pain. He would make a death that men would remember for as long as memory remained. "Fire. Fire!" And the shouts of Centurion Terra outside his door were buried in the roaring of the flames.

Aqua screamed herself awake. She wasn't alone. She was being held to something warm, with cloth outside and ribs underneath. Only her father had ever held her, since the nurses when she was very young. "Ven?"

"Yeah, it's me," he said, squeezing her close. "It's okay."

"That wasn't the Dive to the Heart," Aqua rasped. She was crying. "It was, it was. . ."

"Your father?" Aqua nodded against his chest. This ought to have been humiliating, crying into a street boy's shirt, but just now it didn't feel like that. It was probably because she wasn't entirely awake yet. "Yeah, I know," Ven said. "I dreamed about my Ma for weeks after she died. It doesn't get easier, I guess, but you get stronger about it."

"You hated my father," Aqua said. Ven had never said that, exactly, but he'd almost said it too many times. Aqua wasn't an idiot.

"I didn't like my Ma, either," Ven said calmly. "She was a hooker, and her pimp beat me up. She hit me sometimes, too, when she was high. But she was my Ma, and she loved me when she was straight, and when she died I was alone."

"Did you know your father?" Aqua asked. She'd wondered that, because poor commoners sometimes didn't. She didn't know why she'd asked now.

"Nah," Ven said. "He died before I was born."

"My mother died that year, I think," Aqua said. It was just after she'd been born, and she was older than Ven.

"Yeah. It was the same day, actually."

"Ven," Aqua said, "do you ever think we were meant to meet each other?"

"Gramps says so. It makes sense. Are you okay now?"

"Yes." Aqua sat up. "Why didn't the Dive work?" That was a small disaster, when they could ill afford another, and she'd hardly given it a thought until now.

"It's supposed to pass in the royal blood, right?" Ven grinned. "If you weren't a princess, Princess, I'd ask if you were sure you knew _your_ father."

"Do not be ridiculous," Aqua snapped, but Ven just shrugged and laughed. "Ven. . ." They might die before morning, and Aqua felt something stirring that she no longer cared about containing. It would be nice if, just once. . . "Ven, will you kiss me?"

"No!" Ven said, not cruelly, but surprised, as though he never thought she would ask.

Aqua sat up straight, and looked away from him. "Very well," she began.

"Oh, come on," Ven interrupted her, "don't get all princess-face, it's not like that. Of course I _love_ you." Aqua's eyes snapped back around. Her jaw would have dropped, except that such a break of control would have disappointed her father so. "Aqua, I'm your. . . I'm your friend, Princess. Always, no matter what. To the end of the worlds. Okay?" And he hugged her again, tight, so she could feel his heart beating against her right breast.

"All right," Aqua said. She felt very strange.

"Okay," Ven said, and let her go. "I've gotta go, before the sword-monkey figures I'm in here."

"Wasn't he standing outside?"

"Don't think so," Ven said, "but I skipped the hallway and came through the window."

"Your Majesty!" Terra called. He sounded like he was downstairs. Aqua had gotten wiser since meeting Ven. Her eyes barely flickered at the shout, so she saw Ven climb out her window again.

"Just like old times," Ven said as he vanished. Aqua went to see what Terra wanted, so she didn't have to look out where Ven had gone, at the dying city.


End file.
